Name of the Beast
by NinjaSquirls
Summary: A month later, and he still calls Jack ‘sir’ in bed; he can’t seem to help himself. Oneshot. Jack/Ianto. Small 02x01 spoilers.


A/N: this started out as a Naruto drabble, but clearly is no longer either of those things, which is a shame, but I really liked how the idea worked for Jack and Ianto. And it allowed me to get in my usual amount of angst while also working with the changes in Ianto and in Jack and Ianto's relationship that we see in the new season (or will see, if you're not in the UK or have morals, unlike me). Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Why would I want to own it? The show is already basically a fangirl's wet dream. C'mon!

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**Name of the Beast**

The first time they have sex, the first time Jack brushes aside his feeble protests with a finger on his lips and a hot mouth on his collarbone, Ianto calls him 'sir' unthinkingly, a matter of long-ingrained instinct. He hisses it through his teeth, mumbles it into Jack's hair, moans it to the ceiling with Jack so hard and strong and perfect above him, eyes screwed shut in ecstasy, and when Jack holds him tight in the prison of his arms as he shudders in completion he is beyond words at all.

A month later, and he still calls Jack 'sir' in bed; he can't seem to help himself. It's not a kink, although from the hitch in breath and the quiver going through him when he says it Ianto knows it turns Jack on to hear. It's certainly not a term of endearment, an affectionate nickname in disguise, even if Jack makes an effort to hear it that way. In the year after Canary Wharf Ianto learned how to lie well enough to half-convince himself, but for everything he lets Jack believe, he still knows it isn't about dominance and submission, not about mind games, not about control or love or even simply sex.

Lying sleepless in Jack's arms late at night, Ianto knows that in the end it's really about distance. It's about closing his eyes and pretending this isn't happening at all. As long as he can keep himself apart from this, in his head, as long as he has bland and hollow words to hide behind – as long as he doesn't have to call Jack by name – he can keep pretending.

And maybe if he keeps calling Jack 'sir' none of it will be true. Maybe he won't be having sex with another man, maybe he won't be having sex with his boss, maybe he won't be cheating on Lisa, maybe he won't be cheating on her with the man who _murdered_ her. Maybe his whole world won't be broken pieces and the sick, disgusted feeling when he wakes up in Jack's bed and the knowledge that even with all that he wouldn't leave Jack for anything.

If he called Jack by name, he would have to face that he's falling in love with a man he hates, a man who will never love him back.

Of course Jack, wonderful terrible heartless Jack, takes the problem out of his hands by leaving, just like that, no goodbyes and no looking back – _because if he had looked back he would have seen Ianto and he would have stayed, wouldn't he?_ – and Ianto doesn't need 'sir' to distance himself when time and space work so much better.

And then he comes back. It has been, God, it's been so long, months and months of desperately trying to pick up the slack left by Jack's absence, of trying to make a place for himself, of trying to convince himself how much better he is without Jack when he still can't stop _thinking_ about him. Of trying to find a place to wall off those memories where they won't _hurt_ anymore. And Jack has the nerve to walk in and flash that aren't-I-sexy grin and act as though he'd never gone, as though he can just pick up where they left off, and it is all Ianto can do not to punch him.

But– _I came back for you_, he said, and Ianto wants to believe that, as much as he hates himself for wanting to trust Jack again, more than anything he wants to believe it could be true. He wants to believe Jack could have changed enough to make it true. If the months since he left have taught Ianto he can live without him, they've also taught him he never wants to do it again if he doesn't have to.

"_Can we maybe drop the sir, now?" _

And those words can't mean as much to Jack as they do to him, they _can't_, but oh he wants to. He wants to whisper Jack's name softly into his ear and start everything over the way it should have been all along, and he has to wonder what's wrong with him, that he is just looking for reasons to fall back in love with a man who's only hurt him in the past, but still, still he wants to.


End file.
